Our history

The Group has a history dating back 160 years to the family enterprise of Thomas James Smith who opened a small pharmacy in Hull, England in 1856. On his death in 1896, his nephew Horatio Nelson Smith took over the management of the business.

By the late 1990s, Smith & Nephew had expanded into being a diverse healthcare conglomerate with operations across the globe, including various medical devices, personal care products and traditional and pioneering woundcare treatments.

In 1998, Smith & Nephew announced a major restructuring to focus management attention and investment on three business units — wound management, endoscopy and orthopaedics — which offered high growth and margin opportunities.

In 2001, Smith & Nephew became a constituent member of the FTSE-100 index in the UK. This means that Smith & Nephew is included in the top 100 companies traded on the London Stock Exchange measured in terms of market capitalisation.